350 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



As a rule, the wood lot occupies, as it ought to, the poorer part 

 of the farm, the rocky or stony, the dry or the wet portions, which 

 are not well fitted for agricultural crops. As a rule, it is treated as 

 it ought not to be, if the intention is to have it serve its purpose 

 continuously; it is cut and culled without regard to its reproduction. 

 As far as firewood supplies go, the careful farmer will first use the 

 dead and dying trees, broken limbs, and leavings, which is quite 

 proper. The careless man avoids the extra labor which such material 

 requires, and takes whatever splits best, no matter whether the ma- 

 terial could be used for better purposes or not. When it comes to 

 the cutting of other material, fence rails, posts, or dimension timber, 

 the general rule is to go into the lot and select the best trees of the 

 best kind for the purpose. This looks at first sight like the natural, 

 most practical way of doing. It is the method which the lumberman 

 pursues when he "culls" the forest, and is, from his point of view 

 perhaps, justifiable, for he only desires to secure at once what is most 

 profitable in the forest. But for the farmer, who proposes to use his 

 wood lot continuously for. supplies of this kind, it is a method detri- 

 mental to his object, and in time it leaves him with a lot of poor, 

 useless timber which encumbers the ground and prevents the growth 

 of a better crop. 



Our woods are mostly composed of many species of trees; they 

 are mixed woods. Some of the species are valuable for some special 

 purposes, others are applicable to a variety of purposes, and again 

 others furnish but poor material for anything but firewood, and 

 even for that use they may not be of the best. 



Among the most valuable in the northeastern woods we should 

 mention the white pine king of alt the white ash, white and 

 chestnut oak, hickories, tulip tree, black walnut, and black cherry, 

 the last three being now nearly exhausted; next, spruce and hem- 

 lock, red pine, sugar maple, chestnut, various oaks of the black or 

 red oak tribe, several species of ash and birch, black locust; lastly, 

 elms and soft maples, basswood, poplars, and sycamore. Now, by 

 the common practice of culling the best it is evident that gradually 

 all the best trees of the best kinds are taken out, leaving only inferior 

 trees or inferior kinds the weeds among trees, if one may call them 

 such and thus the wood lot becomes well-nigh useless. 



It does not supply that for which it was intended; the soil, 

 which was of little use for anything but a timber crop before, is still 

 further deteriorated under this treatment, and being compacted by 

 the constant running of cattle, the starting of a crop of seedlings is 

 made nearly impossible. It would not pay to turn it into tillage 

 ground or pasture ; the farm has by so much lost in value. In other 

 words, instead of using the interest on his capital, interest and capi- 

 tal have been used up together; the goose that laid the golden egg 

 has been killed. This is not necessary if only a little system is 

 brought into the management of the wood lot and the smallest care 

 is taken to avoid deterioration and secure reproduction. 



Improvement Cuttings. The first care should be to improve 

 the crop in its composition. Instead of culling it of its best material, 



